Day 1: not even home

I spent the first day of PCCX out doing the shopping I should have done Sunday. The only cleaning I got done was getting the groceries put away. But hey, I'll take any accomplishment I can get. I did stock up on a couple of cleaning supplies, so I've got that going for me too.

Summer PCCX

Whose dumb idea was it to have PCCX in the summer? When it's hot? VERY hot!!  It doesn't matter where you are in the U.S., July is the hottest month of the year.  So, let's sweat our asses off and clean like our mothers-in-law are coming over in 2 days.  Except, we're gonna clean for 6 straight weeks.  Thanks so much for remembering Amanda.  Appreciate it.  Really.

Anyways, I actually started pccx a few days early.  I decided my living room is easier to do in sections to detail vacuum and steam clean because of moving furniture around and let's face it, its easier to say "avoid this 4x8 section of the floor" then "NOBODY walk in the living room for the next 8 hours!!!"  Besides, the bathroom is off of the living room, and the cats don't listen. So, I'm doing sections.

Now, I'm going to apologize in advance.  I rarely remember to take pictures for the before/after effect.  I usually remember while in process or after I'm done.  Maybe I'll get better at it if I do this daily, right? Right???

So, to begin. I have before/after pics of my front entry.  Mind you, hardly anyone visits that area because we strictly use the back door.  The cats however, like to throw up there. Often.  Leaving wonderful stains for me to clean up because nobody else in this house has the balls (Yeah, I said it. Three men in the house and I'm the one with the balls).  I digress.  So, my only visitors to that area are perfect strangers that don't know any better and come to the front door. Isn't this the site I want them to see when first meeting us? NOT!!  So, I took everything out (a bench and about 50,000 boxes because my Dad can't bear to throw them out because we'll need a box that size one day).  THEN remembered to grab the camera

So, that was Friday.  Saturday, I did the section near the bathroom, about 4 x 8 in size.  Do you think I remembered the camera? Nope.  So, no pictures, but I swear, I did it.  Sunday I tackled the section across from the bathroom where we have a desk/computer.  If you own a pet, you'll understand the amount of pet hair in the before picture. (Oh, and I remembered RIGHT after I did one sweep of the vacuum LOL)

The next day, I took a break from the floor because I ran out of cleaner for the steam vac (except I found out last night that I do have another small bottle under the kitchen sink, which means that 1.) I can work on the living room floor again tomorrow, and 2.) I need to clean under the kitchen sink and see if I can find other cleaners and maybe Jimmy Hoffa.  Anyways, I decided to tackle the microwave.  Didn't get a before pic, did get an after shot though :)

My last group of pictures are strictly after shots, you'll just have to trust me that I did the job.  Why? Because I'm too hot to get up and take a pictures because its JULY!!! These shots are in the entryway. Today I decided to look up and dust. Can I just say, ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww...never look up!!!

Okay, so that's my last 5 days. Even though PCCX technically didn't start until yesterday. So, consider me ahead by starting a few days beforehand, or late because I didn't post yesterday LOL

Starting again

I'm not going to make any grandiose statements about how I'm going to beat this place into submission once and for all, or magically get it all together in the next 5 weeks. With any luck I'll make it onto that road, but I'm not expecting miracles.

This is a time of change for me though. I've made major alterations to my personal blog, I've started another challenge or two, this is beginning, and just in general it's the second half of the year and I'm feeling the need to revisit goals.

I'm going to take new pictures this time, but only as I go. One section or room at a time I'll post before and after photos as I work on them. I apologize in advance for the quality of said photos; my real camera is not on speaking terms with me so I'll have to use my camera phone which is decidedly less clear. But possibly better than no pictures at all so I'll give it a shot.

So once again the reminder: any progress is progress, and the cleaner things get now the cleaner they'll be when it's time - in the not-so-distant future - for the mother of them all, Fall PCCX + Holiday Plan. Here's to a productive 5 weeks. Cheers.

Confessions

I sorta bailed on the whole cleaning concept there. I did get a few things accomplished, notably: E's room cleared out (see previous post), the girls' room rearranged and C's dresser *finally* in her own room, many carloads of trash (mostly empty boxes) taken to the dump, and clothing gone through and thinned out in a major way. But the place remains a sty, laundry remains a mountain, and there's more furniture issues than I care to count. And that's just inside the house; let's not get started on outside.

I would go to bed with the best of intentions for the following day, and then I would either wake up sick or Chris would take the day off and kill my plans. And then before I knew it it was the last week and I was out of time. Oh well. *fingers crossed* It's possible that the chronic nausea and heartburn that were making life miserable have been removed from the equation, or at the very least watered down significantly with last week's gallbladder surgery.

I'm thinking what I need right now is a back-to-basics movement. Something sort of opposite of the PCCX plan. One small, basic thing at a time, building one upon another until a bare bones routine is once again in place. I think I'll run that up the PCC flagpole and see if anybody salutes.

Wow that was hellacious

I don't know what got into me this morning, and I almost didn't make it through the day, but I accomplished a HUGE thing today. I did have help; I drafted the kids into picking up most of the monstrous pile. I started in the back of the house, in the boys' rooms, and swept EVERYTHING into the living room. In some (most) houses this probably wouldn't amount to much, but let me tell you, without exaggeration, that was a lot. When I'd gotten it all out of the boys' rooms, the back of the hallway, and 1/3 of my room, there was a solid mass of sh...stuff through half the hall and all of the living room, wall to wall to wall, a minimum of 6" deep. A good dozen baskets of laundry hauled downstairs later, it looked like the picture below.

I also moved C's dresser out of E's room. It's stashed in the hallway for now; I don't have anywhere else to put it that doesn't disturb someone else's room. Can someone remind me why the girls are sharing a smaller room than B has to himself? There's a little more furniture rearranging to do there, but that's a job for another day.

We always say that one cannot *clean* (PCCX especially) what is cluttered. I don't necessarily have a clutter issue, per se, as I don't have a lot of collections and things to be whittled down and weeded out, but there is a veritable ton of stuff just out...trash on the floor, laundry on the floor, toys on the floor, papers on the floor, everything on the floor. There's no way I can clean anything until all of that is gone. That's what today was about: taking back at least a couple of rooms so that I can get in there and really clean stuff. When I recover from today that is.

I started, I really did

Yesterday and today I've holed myself up in my room and tried to dig down to the floor. Dividing the room roughly in thirds: closet and floor between door, bed, and closet; 2 dressers and under the bed; and my side of the bed, 2 bookcases, and the third dresser. I've gotten most of the first third done. Only the nightstand remains to be cleaned up and out and under and behind. Oh, and my jewelry box needs to be wiped down but it's buried under a pile of things I found that need to be put away somewhere. The closet is in much better shape. I had Chris get a closet pole yesterday at the lumber store to mostly replace the lousy wire "system" that was in there. I'm not entirely sure that really helped much in the end...I'd be happier if it didn't sag so. I also got one dresser done. Emptied it and wiped it out, turned it on side and back and front and tried to bang it back into shape where pieces have shifted loose. It worked a little bit. I swept under and behind it and refilled it with Chris' things. I started pulling things out from under the bed, thought maybe I'd find Hoffa under there, and then moved on to other things. I've dusted corners for cobwebs, and I've dusted the ceiling fan, and I've cleared off a second dresser, and I've pulled out clothes to give away and store for next fall. All together I think I'm just over 1/3 done. I could wash and scrub and clean further in the areas I've gone through, but as much crap as I've had to sort through just to find the floor to sweep it, mopping and scrubbing can wait. Unfortunately, that was the easy 1/3.

I have 2 more dressers that need the usual emptying, moving, cleaning behind, and cleaning. Further, they also need pounding and restructuring to make them actually useful, and the one that I already did was the one that needed the least by far. It's this set of 3 antique Chinese dressers that belonged to my great-grandparents. They're great, carved, teak things, not very large by modern standards, but they'll do, if barely, if they're in proper working order. They're constructed entirely with fit and tension and dovetail joints, and over many decades, and many years of abuse in our house, many things have come apart. Some drawers are missing a bottom, or the slides are loose and the drawer falls out easily, or the whole thing has come wide and drawers and supports have come out altogether. There's a pair of nightstands that are the same way, too. On the positive side, the lack of mechanical joins means that in most cases a good walloping with a rubber mallet goes a long way toward returning the pieces to their proper placement. The down side is that I possess neither the skill nor strength to truly do the job properly. But something is usually better than nothing, so I'm going to tack a whack at it - literally - anyway.

There's also 2 bookcases on that side of the room. One of them is only missing a post or 2 for one of its shelves, so that's easily repaired. The other one...not so much. I was never able to put it together *quite* right, and the sides bow out just enough that the shelves can't stay on their pegs and many months ago....like almost 2 years?...the top 3 shelves fell down onto the 4th and it's just kind of sat there like a train wreck ever since.

There's also the disturbing amount of utter rubbish under the bed, that Chris moments ago was oh-so-helpful in attempting to force into the light of day. I'll be back to work in here more later tonight, but in the meantime, please excuse me while I go KILL HIM.

And so it begins

Whose brilliant idea was it to start PCCX during Spring Break? Perhaps some people can leverage their kids' extra presence into help in cleaning, but apparently I'm not that adept at that beyond getting a few things picked up. It's now Thursday and I can't even say I'm all that caught up on basics right now. We've had extra kids over playing, I opened the Wii Fit and now *everyone* has to take their turn all the time, there's more mess than usual if that's even possible, and I haven't gotten started on a single project. Unless you count planting an Aero Garden and adopting a new virtual Touch Pets puppy. Yeah, that's productive. Fun though. :)